Mass Storage

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/wiki/Mass Storagework

Mass Storage is any data storage medium that retains its contents permanently. Typically slower, less compact and more power hungry than RAM, but far cheaper and more capacious, and unlike RAM they generally do not require constant power to retain their data. Some mass storage devices are Read Only Memory (these are also referred to as Write Once, Read Many, or WORM, formats), but many are fully rewriteable.

Mass storage is the main factor of loading times in games. Different types have different speeds. Typically optical based storage (CD, DVD, Blu-ray Disc) are the slowest, but inexpensive to produce. Flash memory is much faster, but typically more expensive to produce. Up until the 2010s, multi gigabyte flash storage was prohibitively expensive for mass media, and formats like blu-ray continue to be economically competitive despite low read speeds.

Examples include the Magnetic Disk, Optical Disc (CD and DVD,) memory carts, and Flash Memory (which, interestingly enough, is actually a very electricity efficient eraseable ROM format).